‘We didn’t bring them!’ Ethan shouted back. ‘You have to run, now!’
‘I’m not leaving my home!’
Jesse dashed into the centre of the commune, spread his arms wide and shouted up at the helicopters.
‘This is my home! You have no right to be here!’
The side doors of the helicopters suddenly slid open and Ethan saw rappel lines spill out in the faint light from the other homes as residents opened their doors as they sought to see what was going on outside.
‘Get out of here!’ Ethan shouted at them. ‘Run!’
Jesse shouted out to his people. ‘Stay where you are! You have nothing to fear! We have done nothing wrong!’
Lopez dashed to Ethan’s side, Stanley alongside her with Amber. ‘We need to go, now!’
Ethan nodded and gestured to the north.
‘Get deeper into the forest, it’s the only chance we have.’
Ethan ran toward Jesse as Lopez, Stanley and Amber fled.
‘Get out of there!’ he yelled at Jesse.
The commune leader shook his head, his arms still spread wide as he stared up at the helicopters, smiling now.
‘They’re our soldiers,’ he shouted back. ‘We have nothing to fear from them!’
Ethan slid to a halt behind a large cedar tree as he shouted back even as soldiers appeared on the rappel lines and began descending toward the forest floor.
‘They’re not our soldiers, Jesse!’ he shouted. ‘Run, now!’
Jesse looked at Ethan in confusion and then the first gunshots rang out.
Ethan saw Jesse take two rounds, a classic double — tap shot that zipped through his plexus and upper right chest. Jesse twitched once and then twice before his legs gave way beneath him and he slumped onto the forest floor amid a whirlwind of dislodged leaves and foliage.
Ethan looked up and saw brief flares of light as M–16 rifles opened up on the commune in a blaze of staccato flashes. Even before Jesse had hit the forest floor screams went up from the houses around him as the inhabitants dashed out and began fleeing into the darkened forests.
Ethan saw dozens of troops descending down the rappel lines toward the forest floor, firing indiscriminately into the darkened woods. He turned and ran across the compound, dashing left and right to spoil the aim of the soldiers, who would be concentrating on rappelling and getting onto solid ground before taking more careful aim at their targets.
Half a dozen deafening blasts and bright flares of light illuminated the forest around him as the attacking troops dropped flash — bangs to blind and disorientate their targets. Ethan could hear the screams of the commune’s families as they sought to escape the assault, and he felt his desperate need to escape warring with his need to defend people who had no means of defending themselves. A cold dread enveloped him as he realized just how far Majestic Twelve were willing to go in order to capture and kill Stanley Meyer. The assassination of innocent civilians, however abhorrent to anybody else, was no obstacle to their goal.
Ethan threw himself into the cover of the forest, behind a broad trunked tree as he looked back into the compound. The helicopters were arrayed in a ring around it, the troops descending into the forest and then moving in toward the centre to prevent anybody from escaping. He sought to find Lopez, but he could see nothing in the darkness and he knew that he would not be able to locate her easily.
He looked up and saw a single Black Hawk helicopter blocking his path, hovering above the trees and with its rappel lines now empty. He knew that the soldiers would be equipped with the latest technology: night — vision goggles, infrared sensors and other gadgetry that would allow them to track their targets in complete darkness. For all he knew Ethan was probably already in clear view to the advancing soldiers, and even if he were not those from a different angle would be able to warn their comrades of his presence crouched alongside the trunk of the huge tree.
Ethan remained in position and ducked his head down to protect his vision against any more of the flash — bangs that might be tossed in his direction as he attempted to orientate himself to the camp. He recalled Jesse describing the diesel generators that were used by the camp to provide energy during particularly cold winter months, and he hunted around the forest floor for any sign of the power lines that must run to the houses. Most likely they would be buried, but there might be some kind of evidence of their passage. In the faint light of the compound he searched the forest, remaining perfectly still as he sought a likely route, the most sensible place for Jesse and his people to have built the generators.
Ethan spotted a narrow path between the trees that appeared unnaturally straight, as though the foliage had been cleared at some point and had not yet fully regrown. He peered into the darkness and saw a glint of reflected light, the kind of reflection that could only come from metal.
A noise to Ethan’s left alerted him to the presence of the advancing soldiers and he turned just in time to see a flare of gunfire. A salvo of bullets smashed into the tree next to him and sprayed chips of bark and wood into his face as he fell away from the impacts and rolled across the forest floor. Ethan leaped to his feet and dashed across the path, sprinting down toward the metal object he had seen reflected in the firelight.
More gunshots pursued him immediately, his doom prevented only by his rapid motion and the dense trees around him that made a perfect shot almost impossible due to the nature of the night — vision goggles. Ethan knew from his own use of them in Afghanistan that they presented a flat image in only two dimensions that made it incredibly difficult to judge depth perception, meaning that any soldier using a rifle with them had to account for this change in perception, something very difficult to do against a moving target amid multiple obstacles.
Keep moving.
Ethan slid down into the foliage as he spotted ahead of him a rectangular metal wire cage, within which were two diesel generators that were currently switched off. The cage had a door which was sealed with a padlock. Ethan yanked at the lock but it was far too secure for him to break through. Instead, Ethan spotted the fuel lines that fed diesel from the tanks into the generator, which was then converted into electrical power and directed toward the homes.
Ethan pulled out a small knife from his satchel and managed to push the blade far enough through the wire fence to puncture one of the fuel lines. He levered the knife back and forth until the blade sliced through and the diesel fuel began to spill onto the forest floor beneath the tanks. Ethan tucked down behind the tanks and then began to retreat as fast as he could away from them. A second Black Hawk helicopter was to his left, still hovering and gusting hot air through the forest along with the smell of aviation fuel. Gunshots rang out as the soldiers closed in on the homes, completely encircling the compound.
Ethan reached into his pocket and pulled out a zippo lighter, one that he carried with him throughout the Gulf War. Ethan had never smoked, but in theatre one of the quickest ways to gain friends among the Iraqis was to offer cigarettes and to light them, breaking down social barriers with the people they were trying to protect as they sought information on whatever bad guys they may have been after at the time.
Ethan placed one hand on the ground and felt the tinder — dry leaves and twigs coating the forest floor beneath his touch. He gathered together a small pile of them, the gusting wind from the helicopter blades at his back as he crouched down over the kindling, shoved the zippo lighter deep into it and flicked the flint.
The makeshift kindling ignited immediately with a pale flame that quickly grew in intensity. Ethan leapt up as soon as the flames had taken hold and dashed to his right as another pair of gun shots cracked out and zipped through the space where he had been crouched moments before.